Technology is neutral, but it all depends on the way we use it.
Jean-Michel Jarre
For me, electronic music is like cooking: it's a sensual organic activity where you can mix ingredients.
Saying that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say.
Suddenly, we are putting ourselves as the next dinosaurs. It's rather dark; we have narrowed our dreams. It is time to restore our visions. And so it's not a nostalgic idea; it is based with this unconscious need to restore a kind of dynamic for tomorrow.
The difference between noise and music is in what the musician does with the sounds.
I feel very privileged to have played China, and the pyramids, all these fantastic places, but it created a kind of smoke curtain between the audience and me as a musician.
'Oxygene' was one of the first, if not the first, popular electronic music album.
CDs are not as good as vinyl, and you buy one in the supermarket along with the yoghurt.
With the violin, for example, one understands culturally that the sound comes from the instrument that can be seen. With electronic music, it is not the same at all. That's why it seemed so important to me, from the beginning of my career, to invent a grammar, a visual vocabulary adapted to electronic music.
In my opinion, British women are more romantic than French ones.
From the outside, being an artist seems like a dream life, but there are much darker aspects to it.
Generation after generation, there is this never-ending, contemptuous, condescending attitude to the next generation or the next way of thinking: music, art, politics, whatever. And I have never been like that.
I understand more when I travel why people believe that the French are arrogant.
I consider music like a mirage in the desert. You're obsessed with the ideal piece of music, and the more you think you're getting closer, it's not there.
Electronic musicians are quite like writers or painters. They are quite isolated in their home studios. We often don't have that the opportunity to collaborate with that many people, like in rock or jazz.
With electronic music, you are not confined to the acoustics of a concert-hall, and that inspired me to bring my performances outdoors.
The value of streaming platforms is estimated at a few billion dollars, and creators can only afford a pizza without pepperoni at the end of the year with the revenues. Without musicians, all those platforms wouldn't exist, so we urgently need an appropriate and sustainable business model for musicians for the 21st century.
I think that in any language when you have a real relationship, and there is love and respect between people, infidelity is always something difficult to accept - whether you are Chinese, British, French. I think that is a universal concept... or problem.
For me, electronic music is the classical music of the 21st century.
Technology does not always rhyme with perfection and reliability. Far from it in reality!
People are rejecting the power of the elite, but individuals such as Snowden are doing so in a positive way, trying to change things for the better. He is a very intelligent man and obviously interested in electronic music.
Bands like Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream, who I respect, have a very robotic, dehumanised approach. They're almost an apology for machines. It's very German.
I'm convinced that the earth is much stronger than us.
When I began making electronic music, the only thing I was thinking about was creating music that I really liked. I didn't think about what effect it would have; I was busy doing it.
The whole 'Electronica' project is about the ambiguous relationship we have with technology: on the one side, we have the world in our pocket; on the other, we are spied on constantly.
I studied classical music in the Conservatory of Paris.
One of the first things I created was music for the Paris opera's ballet troupe. That was the first time that electronic music was played at the opera. I really like the relationship between the music and the choreography.
When I heard Edward Snowden's story, it reminded me of my mother in a strange way. She was in the French resistance from early on, 1941. At that time, the Resistance were considered troublemakers - even traitors - in France.
I don't necessarily like anniversaries that much.
When you have a young man, I mean, questioning the power in place for love of his country, not to say 'stop' but to say 'be careful about the abuse of technology,' I think it deserves to be promoted.
My father and I never really achieved a real relationship. We probably saw each other 20 or 25 times in our lifetime.
I had no precise plan when I started 'Electronica,' but I think it has been a very positive journey for me.
Our senses have changed, even though our emotions have not.
I was always interested in mixing experimentation with pop music, and Brian Eno, Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream - we were all doing it at the same time, just very isolated from each other, all in our different cellars, in different worlds, without the Internet - underground in every sense.
To me, the original VCS3 synthesizer is like a Stradivarius.
I did the first 'Oxygene' on an 8 tracks tape recorder with very few instruments, with no other choice than being minimalist.
When you think after 25 years of Mao, Chinese people had no idea about western music or even western culture. They had no idea about James Dean or the Beatles or Charlie Chaplin, modern music or modern cinema.
We all think we are connected to the world now, but we are not talking to our neighbours any more.
What may not have value to you today may have value to an entire population, entire people, an entire way of life tomorrow. And if you don't stand up for it, then who will?
When I was at the Group for Musical Research, with this idea of discovering electronic music, I quickly realized that that it was a very interesting and exciting approach to music, but I also saw that it was very intellectual and quite dogmatic.
I was recently realizing that I've probably spent 80 percent of my life in studios! It's very difficult to do that and still have a private life; it's very difficult to do anything else.
Governments can help support European music by promoting public awareness that when people take music that doesn't belong to them, they undermine the future of those very artists whose work they enjoy.
If music is to continue to support the livelihoods of artists, it cannot be taken without the permission of artists.
Music is the backbone of my shows.
When I compose an album, I don't think about how to adapt it on stage.
I am not someone who is afraid; I am someone who reasons.
When I did the first 'Oxygene' in the vinyl days, I had a structure in mind divided in 2 parts fitting the A&B sides of an album.
Most of the time, when you are in the studio, you are revealing yourself; you're a bit naked. You can express your weaknesses, your awkward way of approaching sound. Sharing these intimate moments is like inviting somebody into your private room.
People don't realize enough how important and influentical John Carpenter has been in electronic music. He did his soundtracks by himself, using mostly electronic and analog synthesizers. He's a cult figure with DJs these days for good reasons.
Some collaborators might join forces in certain cities or special concerts. I'm excited to share the stage with some prestigious people that I love and respect.
